New England IPA "Northeast" style IPA

[stickyfinger]

Honestly I haven't been thrilled either time I've used El Dorado (it was 1:1:1 Citra Mosaic El Dorado last time), so I don't plan on buying any more once I run out. Regarding Galaxy though, I will probably start limiting it to one third or one quarter of the total hop bill. Its interesting because I've had several single hop Galaxy beers (Hill Farmstead, Great Notion) that are fantastic. I wonder what they are doing differently.

maybe they search out the best Galaxy hops for their beers, hops we don't have access to.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

NOt to stir up a **** storm, but Low-O2 methods are especially effective with NEIPAs

 

[orangehero]

NOt to stir up a poopy storm, but Low-O2 methods are especially effective with NEIPAs

Not to poop on your poop stir but what are Low-O2 methods and in what way are they effective regarding NEIPA's?

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Not to poop on your poop stir but what are Low-O2 methods and in what way are they effective regarding NEIPA's?

Low-O2 Brewing, also called LODO, is a bunch of practices aimed at significantly reducing dissolved oxygen in the beer.
Now, much of it is on the hot side and aimed at preserving volatile malt flavors, so while that is good for all wort, it isn’t specifically helpful to IPAs.
With IPA (and NEIPA), the most helpful steps are keeping a closed circuit fermentation, racking, and serving setup. This involves preferably only fermenting in Stainless Steel or glass, and thoroughly purging all racking tubing and your kegs.
Lastly, it involves transferring your beer to the final keg with a few gravity points left and sealing it to naturally carbonate in the keg (spunding). The reason for that is that the active yeast will consume any little bit of oxygen you may introduce in the transferring process, as well as minimizing exposure of your beer to the O2 that is inevitably mixed in your CO2 tank.
So if you are fermenting in a bucket and racking to a keg with a racking cane, you are exposing you beer to all kinds of oxygen. The large amount of hops in an NEIPA is EXTREMELY vulnerable to oxidation, which will darken the beer and quickly (within a matter of weeks or even a few days, depending on exposure) cause you to lose that bright, fresh hops aroma and flavor. That’s why so many people’s NEIPA turns to a brownish mess shortly after bottling.
LODO is controversial, and I am not trying to stir up that debate, but there is an undeniable link between oxygen exposure on the cold side and the loss of hops flavor/aroma and color change.

So, long story short, there are steps you can take, namely the cold-side procedures from LODO (Low-O2), that will preserve of extend the life of your NEIPA or any hoppy beer.

 

[popquizkid]

Low-O2 Brewing, also called LODO, is a bunch of practices aimed at significantly reducing dissolved oxygen in the beer.
Now, much of it is on the hot side and aimed at preserving volatile malt flavors, so while that is good for all wort, it isn’t specifically helpful to IPAs.
With IPA (and NEIPA), the most helpful steps are keeping a closed circuit fermentation, tacking, and serving setup. This involves preferably only fermenting in Stainless Steel or glass, and thoroughly purging all racking tubing and your kegs.
Lastly, it involves transferring your beer to the final keg with a few gravity points left and sealing it to naturally carbonate in the keg (spunding). The reason for that is that the active yeast will consume any little bit of oxygen you may introduce in the transferring process, as well as minimizing exposure of your beer to the O2 that is inevitably mixed in your CO2 tank.
So if you are fermenting in a bucket and racking to a keg with a racking cane, you are exposing you beer to all kinds of oxygen. The large amount of hops in an NEIPA is EXTREMELY vulnerable to oxidation, which will darken the beer and quickly (within a matter of weeks or even a few days, depending on exposure) cause you to lose that bright, fresh hops aroma and flavor. That’s why so many people’s NEIPA turns to a brownish mess shortly after bottling.
LODO is controversial, and I am not trying to stir up that debate, but there is an undeniable link between oxygen exposure on the cold side and the loss of hops flavor/aroma and color change.

So, long story short, there are steps you can take, namely the cold-side procedures from LODO (Low-O2), that will preserve of extend the life of your NEIPA or any hoppy beer.

Agree. I think some of the hot side measures help as well - but not going to go there in this thread The one thing I have not done with my NEIPAs is transfer off the yeast and spund with a few points remaining. 007 / 1318 rip through the wort pretty damn fast unlike a lager ferment. By the time krausen falls and I dry hop pretty sure it is at terminal gravity or very close. I don't have any easy way to check gravity during the ferment without opening it up an grabbing a sample so that makes it even more difficult.

This is what I have kind of settled on and I have not had a problem with oxidation at all. At this point A has become my preferred method but both have worked great.

A. Dry hop in primary after high krausen (day 2ish) and ramp temp. Closed transfer to key day 7-10 , crash and quick force carb

-or-
B. First dry hop in primary after high krausen. Day 7-10 add priming solution to fermenter, wait 30 minutes for the yeast to start working and close transfer to a keg with second dry hop charge. Keep room temp for a few days then move to kegerator. Crash and put on serving pressure. IMHO if you are dry hopping in a keg then priming helps quite a bit in two areas. Sometimes i have gotten diacetyl from keg hopping and priming / natural carb in keg seems to help here. Also add the hops to the beer at this point is exposing it to oxgyen in the hops and the active yeast from the priming solution will use the oxygen up.

 

[milldoggy]

Yes, there is always O2 in your CO2.
Are you taking any other measures to reduce oxygen before and during hops introduction?

No lodo methods on the hot side, but all c02 on cold side. Pressurized transfers, purged kegs, etc. Once fermenting, no 02 exposure. All dry hops on day 2-3. I have seen darkening on non neipas but way more apparent on neipas. I force carb and been debating on trying natural carb to see if it changes anything.

I also run a 27 ft 1/4 draft line and could be related to the perimibility of that.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

No lodo methods on the hot side, but all c02 on cold side. Pressurized transfers, purged kegs, etc. Once fermenting, no 02 exposure. All dry hops on day 2-3. I have seen darkening on non neipas but way more apparent on neipas. I force carb and been debating on trying natural carb to see if it changes anything.

I also run a 27 ft 1/4 draft line and could be related to the perimibility of that.

Sound pretty good from a procedural point of view, but yes, naturally carbing is the way to go (just take samples until you are about 3-4 points away from expected final gravity, rack to a keg and leave it sealed (no airlock). You really don't even need a spunding valve, as long as you don't leave too much more sugar than 3-4 points left.
For my current on tap NEIPA, I used the ClearBeer Draft system for the first time and I have to say I will never make one without it again.

If you're not familiar, it's basically a floating dip tube, so you aren't sucking up the yeast and hops residue from the bottom of the keg. Amazing! Especially if you keg dryhop.

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

I use the clear beer draught system with a screen over the pick up, no debris makes it to the keg. If you are nifty you can build your own floating dip (there is a DYI thread on this form). But many people trim or bend their dip tube up above the trub. Use a gray gas disconnect with tubing into a jar of starsan as a air lock. Pressurize the keg to seat the lid and put in the fridge to cold crash, then jump it to a new keg with 2 black disconnects. Next ipa I make I’m going to serve it straight from the fermentation keg to see if it make any difference.

Gotcha! Thanks!

 

[jakturner]

Since we talkin LODO what do guys think about oxidation from starter wort? I usually make 1.5L starter the day before brewing, no stirplate just shaking a few times here and there, I pitch 1L in beer and save .5L for next starter. This is for 3.5 gallons.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Since we talkin LODO what do guys think about oxidation from starter wort? I usually make 1.5L starter the day before brewing, no stirplate just shaking a few times here and there, I pitch 1L in beer and save .5L for next starter. This is for 3.5 gallons.

That shouldn't be an issue, because assuming the yeast are active in the starter, they are going to have consumed the oxygen in the starter wort by the time you pitch it, so there should be little to no DO in the starter juice.
Experiments have shown that active yeast can effectively eliminate DO in a matter of hours.

 

[crusader1612]

Since we talkin LODO what do guys think about oxidation from starter wort? I usually make 1.5L starter the day before brewing, no stirplate just shaking a few times here and there, I pitch 1L in beer and save .5L for next starter. This is for 3.5 gallons.

Clutching at straws there mate.
Most likely oxidation cause is poor transfer.

 

[milldoggy]

Sound pretty good from a procedural point of view, but yes, naturally carbing is the way to go (just take samples until you are about 3-4 points away from expected final gravity, rack to a keg and leave it sealed (no airlock). You really don't even need a spunding valve, as long as you don't leave too much more sugar than 3-4 points left.
For my current on tap NEIPA, I used the ClearBeer Draft system for the first time and I have to say I will never make one without it again.

If you're not familiar, it's basically a floating dip tube, so you aren't sucking up the yeast and hops residue from the bottom of the keg. Amazing! Especially if you keg dryhop.

Would love to, but kids, work, etc. Never can time it right. Think I might get a 100ml syringe and inject priming sugar through the prv.

 

[jakturner]

That shouldn't be an issue, because assuming the yeast are active in the starter, they are going to have consumed the oxygen in the starter wort by the time you pitch it, so there should be little to no DO in the starter juice.
Experiments have shown that active yeast can effectively eliminate DO in a matter of hours.

Thanks for the info. I figured it wasn’t a big deal, just wanted see what the LODO folks stance on it was. I personally have never had problems with oxidation on these beers. But I also started doing closed transfers from day one and switched to fermenting in keg and spunding to naturally carbonate soon after. I’m always looking to cut out oxidation where ever I can tho. I don’t like cold crash London III because I use the same yeast for multiple brews and I feel like over time I could be selecting the more flocculant cells, which of course we don’t want in this kind of beer!

 

[ryanm8]

Alright guys...I posted a pic a month ago of a batch I made. I bottle, purge with CO2, and am as careful as possible with my bottling setup. I just poured a glass from the same batch I made in my previous post. These were carbonated in PET plastic bottles.

Here is the fresh batch (4 days in bottle and was carbonated):

Here is the same batch 1 month later (so, almost 5 weeks in bottle total):

Looks basically identical to me. Flavor has fallen off though, but not any more than the local brewery NEIPA's do.

 

[KrunkMasterKyle]

I just realized I messed up when I ordered my yeast from MoreBeer. I got London Ale 1318 (favorite), and then WLP002 instead of WLP001 (doh) like I wanted.

Has anyone brewed a NEIPA with WLP002? If not I will report back in 2 weeks and let you guys know how it turned out.

 

[stickyfinger]

I just realized I messed up when I ordered my yeast from MoreBeer. I got London Ale 1318 (favorite), and then WLP002 instead of WLP001 (doh) like I wanted.

Has anyone brewed a NEIPA with WLP002? If not I will report back in 2 weeks and let you guys know how it turned out.

wlp002 makes a good neipa. it will clear up a lot faster than 1318 and leave a little higher gravity. people say it can mute hop character, but i’m not sure about that.

 

[KrunkMasterKyle]

wlp002 makes a good neipa. it will clear up a lot faster than 1318 and leave a little higher gravity. people say it can mute hop character, but i’m not sure about that.

Thanks for the reply! What temp do you ferment this yeast at?

I've been doing 64 (ambient) for 3 days then ramping to 69 over a week for 1318. Looks like the recommended fermentation temps are a bit lower for this yeast.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

I've used 1318, WLP 007, and WLP 001 (I know, not a "classic" NEIPA yeast, but it makes good IPAs, so why not?).
I like my NEIPAs with a little more attenuation, since my standard recipe is actually a DIPA averaging 8% ABV. With that much malt, it can get sweet if you don't have a good attenuating yeast. WLP 002 would probably leave a big NEIPA a little sweet for my taste (but maybe not for yours), but might work fine on something 1.065 or less.

My favorite has been a toss-up between 007 and 1318.
I've never tried Conan because I've heard it can be finicky, and because I try to emulate Treehouse's style and they don't use Conan (though it has been speculated that they use a yeast blend that includes Conan).

 

[KrunkMasterKyle]

I try to emulate Treehouse's style and they don't use Conan (though it has been speculated that they use a yeast blend that includes Conan).

Thanks for the info! The beer I'm thinking about brewing is starting a little high -1.077 so I might adjust to get it lower. As far as tree house yeast, I thought they were using blends of dry yeast in most of their beers. Check out this blog on a Julius clone https://trinitybrewers.com/brews/ipa/julius-clone-treehouse-brewing-ipa/

 

[stickyfinger]

Thanks for the reply! What temp do you ferment this yeast at?

I've been doing 64 (ambient) for 3 days then ramping to 69 over a week for 1318. Looks like the recommended fermentation temps are a bit lower for this yeast.

I haven't done a lot of trials with temperature. I've gotten good results starting at 65F and slowly ramping to 72F. I've also started it at 68F. If I were to do it today, I think I'd just start it at like 67F and hold until the krausen is falling and then ramp up slowly to 72F. WLP002 has a very violent, hot, fast fermentation that can get out of control super fast, so make sure you are cooling it. I made one that had a 1.075 gravity, and I liked it. The massive dry hopping masks some of the perception of sweetness that you can get with WLP002 in a non-hoppy beer.

 

[KrunkMasterKyle]

I haven't done a lot of trials with temperature. I've gotten good results starting at 65F and slowly ramping to 72F. I've also started it at 68F. If I were to do it today, I think I'd just start it at like 67F and hold until the krausen is falling and then ramp up slowly to 72F. WLP002 has a very violent, hot, fast fermentation that can get out of control super fast, so make sure you are cooling it. I made one that had a 1.075 gravity, and I liked it. The massive dry hopping masks some of the perception of sweetness that you can get with WLP002 in a non-hoppy beer.

Okay I will keep my same temp schedule since it seems to work well. I ferment under pressure as well with a spunding valve. What was the FG of that 1.075 beer? I don't want it to be overly sweet since I will be using lactose in my recipe post boil. Thinking I can cut down my grains a bit and use sugar to make up the difference to achieve a lower OG but still the same ABV.

 

[stickyfinger]

Okay I will keep my same temp schedule since it seems to work well. I ferment under pressure as well with a spunding valve. What was the FG of that 1.075 beer? I don't want it to be overly sweet since I will be using lactose in my recipe post boil. Thinking I can cut down my grains a bit and use sugar to make up the difference to achieve a lower OG but still the same ABV.

I would expect 70-75% attenuation for a 155F mash temp with a typical NEIPA grist. I don't find that the resulting beers taste sweet though, just a little fuller/richer than if you used a dryer yeast. i suppose it becomes personal preference at some point.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

My favorite has been a toss-up between 007 and 1318.
I've never tried Conan because I've heard it can be finicky, and because I try to emulate Treehouse's style and they don't use Conan (though it has been speculated that they use a yeast blend that includes Conan).

The DNA evidence is pretty strong against them using Conan - at least in Julius as of a year ago. As per that thread, it looks like Treehouse are probably using a mixture of S-04, T-58 and some kind of hefe/kolsch yeast. However, the DNA evidence also suggests Conan is close to Fuller's (WLP002/1968) which in turn is a cousin of Whitbread B (WLP007/1098/S-04).

 

[Cavpilot2000]

The DNA evidence is pretty strong against them using Conan - at least in Julius as of a year ago. As per that thread, it looks like Treehouse are probably using a mixture of S-04, T-58 and some kind of hefe/kolsch yeast. However, the DNA evidence also suggests Conan is close to Fuller's (WLP002/1968) which in turn is a cousin of Whitbread B (WLP007/1098/S-04).

That's one seriously incestuous family tree!
Those naughty yeast...

 

[marjen]

After a 3 month hiatus I brewed today! Glad to be back in action. Brewed a BIAB NE IPA with Ekuanot and Mosaic. Will be my first batch with complete temp control figuring it should have a positive effect on the outcomes. Also believe I have identified why I had some issues with my last couple batches and have rectified those issues. Looking forward to the outcome.

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

Been over a week now. This is the bottled version. In a nut shell, very drinkable! Kinda morphed in the last few days or maybe settled is a better term. Needless to say, excited! My nemesis maybe conquered..

 

[braindead]

Ive brewed this several times and love it
I have a fresh vial of Vermont or several mason jars of washed 1318.
Ive never made a starter from washed yeast and dont want to eff it up. Theres seems a Layer of hop sludge under the yeast layer, would this be a problem
I just like the 1318 yeast for neipas
What u guys think?

 

[anteater8]

After a 3 month hiatus I brewed today! Glad to be back in action. Brewed a BIAB NE IPA with Ekuanot and Mosaic. Will be my first batch with complete temp control figuring it should have a positive effect on the outcomes. Also believe I have identified why I had some issues with my last couple batches and have rectified those issues. Looking forward to the outcome.

Loooove this hop combo.

 

[schematix]

Since we talkin LODO what do guys think about oxidation from starter wort? I usually make 1.5L starter the day before brewing, no stirplate just shaking a few times here and there, I pitch 1L in beer and save .5L for next starter. This is for 3.5 gallons.

As cav said, shouldn't be an issue. if you pitch a considerable amount of that wort you will be introducting oxidized wort flavors, but it won't go on to oxidize the rest of the batch.

Better starter practice is to make your starter about a 3-7 days before, let it ride for a day, then crash it a couple days and decant as much of the liquid as you can.

An even better practice is then to take ~500mL of your mash wort from mash out, give it a quick boil and chill to fermentation temps, and pitch your slurry to it. It should be rockin and rollin a couple hours before the main batch is ready to be pitched. You'll see short lag times like you've never seen before.

 

[marjen]

I am currently fermenting for the first time with my tilt hydrometer. I pitched 1318 about 39 hours ago. FG was 1.057 it’s already at 1.020. Will most likely add my dry hops this afternoon.